As those of you who read Sophie's blog know, this summer I'm abandoning the kids' individual blogs in favor of a single blog about our family. Of course, most updates will be about the kids, but it will also be a space for any news, plans, or opinions that John or I might have to share.
But here is one final post about Mr. Ben. He certainly deserves one since I haven't updated his blog in over two months! Here are the major updates:
Ben is currently VERY attached to his mama. That has been true for a while, but it used to be that other people could distract him, especially if I wasn't around. But the last time I had one of my friends watch him, she said he cried for me a lot of the time. Right now, we're in Ohio visiting John's family. Ben's Grammy has babysat for us for short periods while John and I go out for a run, but we have yet to try letting someone other than me put him to bed. It's going to happen, though, and it might not be pretty. He also starts school full-time at the end of August, and I'm starting to think it might be really hard for him for a couple of weeks.
He continues to get better and better at communicating. I can pretty much always understand what he wants to communicate, and he seems to comprehend what I say as well. He makes a concerted effort to pronounce words and phrases correctly, and his language is also very flexible an adaptable. He uses the right pronouns, and he'll make the slight changes necessary to different phrases to make them appropriate as his situation changes. It makes me very happy, since we didn't see this from Sophie for a very long time. He has also just started singing, carrying a tune. It was only a matter of time! So now he sings all the time, just like the rest of us. This morning, he suddenly started singing "Hush Little Baby" for the first time, which is his Grammy's special song for him. But even though he knows all the verses, he kept singing, "if that diamond ring don't shine, Grammy's gonna buy you a diamond ring." Guess he really wants that ring.
Ben has a natural attraction to water. There is something in him that just loves it. When he sees water or any liquid, he just has to touch it. Whenever we're out walking and someone is watering their grass, he has to run through the sprinkler. Over the weekend, we were at John's family's lake house, and Ben really couldn't go near the water because he would get too frustrated about not being able to just jump in. Later, though, I asked him if he would like to go on the boat, and he was clearly VERY excited about that. That surprised me, because he knew that getting on the boat didn't mean he would get to touch the water. But he didn't care. He even endured wearing a puffy, uncomfortable life jacket, having the bright sun in his eyes, and the wind rushing into his face. He just sat there, perfectly still. When Ben is perfectly still, you know he is really happy. So we took him on the boat a second time, and this time we let him stand along the railing at the front of the boat. Once he was there, he wasn't leaving for anything. He just kept repeating to himself very seriously: "I love boat. I LOVE water."
He's been having some health problems. For the past week, he's had a cold, so he's been very congested. Fortunately, there hasn't been any fever and we managed to keep the rest of the family healthy. He's almost over it now. The bigger issues have had to do with bug bites that he gets. He reacts very badly to them. After getting attacked by ants, he developed these strange bumps all over his body. When he was bored, he would scratch them until they were bloody, then he kept opening those wounds over and over again. We finally got him some antibiotics and kept him from scratching, but he now has scars all over his legs. They look terrible, mostly because his skin has gotten very tan but the scars haven't. I think they'll get better in time, but for now his legs get a lot of worried comments. In addition to all that, two of his bug bites got severely infected. One of them created a giant cyst that eventually opened and drained (YUCK), and another one made his ankle swell up and turn purple as if he had broken it. He's on antibiotics now, which has helped a lot.
Ben does very well in the car! That's very lucky for us, since we just drove from Florida to Ohio. Both kids did great. Ben didn't even need that much entertainment; he just enjoyed listening to music, eating snacks, and watching the scenery go by. He also loves to do errands with me. For whatever reason, he just likes to leave wherever he is and go somewhere else, and that's basically what errands are.
He's an incredibly playful little guy. He loves rough play like tickling, jumping, climbing, and chasing, but he also likes snuggling, singing, and reading quietly. Like I've said before, he's not a rascal and he isn't mischievous. However, he really, REALLY hates to be told "no." He gets so, so sad about that. It seems like a tantrum, but he's not crying in order to get what he wants. He's crying because he is actually devastated about it. I wonder how long this will last?
